


Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart

by blainedarling



Series: Seblaine Week 2014 [3]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M, Tumblr: seblaineweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-07 17:02:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1906920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blainedarling/pseuds/blainedarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When war is declared, Blaine and Sebastian find the only solace they have in leaving England to be that they may leave together, a twisted freedom from their double lives at home {notes} warning for major character death. This is possibly my favourite thing I’ve ever written, so I really hope you all enjoy it! The title comes from the Vera Lynn song, and I recommend listening to it, it’s beautiful. (Day Three: Historical/Different Decade)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart

_August 17th, 1939_

Sebastian didn’t remember much of America. He’d been only five years old when his mother had immigrated them to England, his memories flickery around the edges. Flashes of waving goodbye to a land that meant little to him yet, the Statue of Liberty shrinking in the distance to the size of a figurine, his hands clutching the railings of the ship that would carry them across the Atlantic. While he never lost his American twang, that little jilt in his accent, something his mother found amusing until her last days on this dear earth, he came to love England as his home.

Days like this, for one. The mid-August sun beat down, warm and unobstructed, not a cloud in the sky. The grass was long beneath his fingertips, irritating his nose a little, but not enough to bother him. The man beside him sneezed - Blaine always was more affected by this time of year than him.

Blaine had been older when his family had left America, in the wake of his elder brother’s death. He had just been a child, Blaine even younger than that. In all the time that Sebastian had known him, he’d never heard Blaine speak much of him, not to him, nor to Rachel. All he knew was that he’d died of influenza and, in response, his parents had promptly packed them off to England. 

Their mothers had met at the grocer’s on the corner between their two houses - or, rather, Blaine and Sebastian had met, getting hauled to the front of the store by the frustrated owner as he caught the two seeing who could stuff more apples into their sweater without getting caught. As two American women in England with a son apiece and husbands who were either physically absent or just spent more time drinking at the local pub than at home, they had bonded quickly.

It had been Sebastian that Blaine had turned to when his father didn’t come home one evening; drunk himself to death or ran off with another woman, they never did find out. Blaine, who went to rouse his mother one morning a fortnight later to find her unmoving and pale against the sheets.

Sebastian’s own mother had lived until as much as a few months previously, but even then Blaine had been there, a constant presence by his side as he organized the funeral and other details, even though he had responsibilities of his own at home. As for his father, he had died serving for his country in the Great War. Sebastian had been shown photos, once upon a time, but told little.

Blaine, incidentally, had lost his accent. He spoke like a native Englishman, the odd word slipping from time to time, but only ever around Sebastian. Blaine blamed Sebastian for that, said it was his fault for throwing him off. Always said with a smile, a hand to his arm, long eyelashes fluttering over his flushed cheekbones. So Sebastian couldn’t find it in him to be too apologetic.

His companion sneezed again, Sebastian reaching into the breast pocket of his button down to retrieve a handkerchief, passing it to him wordlessly. His initials were embroidered in the corner, a hobby his mother had rather taken to in her last few bedridden weeks. 

Blaine offered it back, but Sebastian shook his head, holding up a hand.   
“Keep it,” he smiled, rolling onto his side on the soft grass, propping his head up on his hand. “I have another dozen at home, after all.”  
The younger man laughed, such a gentle sound that it seemed to merge into the light breeze whipping over the blades of grass and their stationary bodies. “I shall have to remember never to buy another handkerchief again. Not when I have a lifetime’s supply just down the road,” Blaine teased, folding the offending handkerchief neatly and tucking it into the pocket of his slacks. 

Sebastian hummed, his eyes tracing the contours of Blaine’s profile in the afternoon sun. Blaine’s hands lay flat against the grass, the skin around his nails slightly stained, as they always were from his work at the post office. He had a bit of a penchant for ending up wearing his work, covered in the ink he used when franking the mail. Sebastian would often call by his house in the evenings to find him with his hands sitting in a basin of warm water in the hopes that it might help to soak the ink from his skin. Blaine would lift one hand from the basin to offer him a wave, sending soap suds flying into his hair. 

He had the hands of a musician, Sebastian had always said. And he did play, well, in fact. But, by Blaine’s standards, not well enough that he would ever take those jobs going at the nearby theatre, in constant demand for a dinner-time piano player. Blaine would click his tongue off the backs of his teeth. 

_Not suitable for a family man like me, Sebastian. Those late hours._

Sebastian wished to take one of Blaine’s hands in his and maybe he would have if it hadn’t been for the cry of “daddy!” across the wide field. It wouldn’t have been the first time. He knew the cracked texture of Blaine’s fingertips and how the lines along his palm looped and connected. He had studied each one, time and time again, committing them to memory, should he ever lose the privilege of spending his time doing so.

“Daddy!” Lucy cried again, dipping in and out of sight as she scampered across the grass, her yellow summer dress bouncing up around her ankles. She had yellow bows in her hair, too. Yellow to match the dress that Rachel was wearing, as she followed behind her with a little more grace and care than her daughter. 

“Princess!” Blaine responded just as eagerly, raising himself to his knees with his arms outspread to meet his daughter. She looked like him, as Sebastian had often commented. Her hair wildly curly, if closer to Rachel’s shade than Blaine’s, wide hazel eyes and a smile that knocked one sideways. 

Lucy barreled into Blaine’s arms, wrapping her own tightly around her father’s neck. She spied Sebastian over his shoulder, waving her hand at him. “‘llo, Uncle Bastian,” she greeted politely, if a little muffled where she had her face pressed into Blaine’s collar. Every bit her father’s daughter. 

Rachel laughed as she joined them, setting herself down in the grass with a light huff. “It’s so  _hot_  out here,” she groaned, tipping her head back to catch the rays across her face. “I want a butler to bring me lemonade and a parasol.” She pretended to swoon, laying back against the grass fully, arm splayed across her forehead. 

“No butlers here, my dear,” Blaine laughed, bouncing Lucy on his lap, encouraging her small cries of exaltation.   
Sebastian tugged on one of Rachel’s curls affectionately, before he, too, settled back down on the grass, folding his hands across his stomach. 

Blaine had met Rachel at the very place of his work. She’d gotten into an awful argument with the cashier on duty and Blaine had stepped in to rectify the situation, ever the gentleman. Blaine had taken her to dinner and the rest, as they say, was history. 

They had been married in a small ceremony in 1934 and Lucy had been born only a year later. Sebastian’s mother had attended the wedding, too, and spent most of it making quiet comments to Sebastian under her breath about how she would bet her remaining days that that girl was pregnant. 

She’d been right, and lived very comfortably for those remaining days, if nothing else. 

Lucy tired of her little game with her father after a time, settling down with her mother on the grass. Blaine lay between them and Sebastian, only a few moments passing before the latter felt his companion seeking out the touch of his fingers. 

They laced their hands together silently, the four staring up at the cloudless sky. A rumble started across the sky, one akin to thunder. It was hot, but it was not quite that hot. The planes rushed overhead soon after, leaving tail wisps in their wake. 

“Woooosh!” Lucy squealed, giggling to herself before settling down again.  
The other three were silent for a time, before Blaine spoke up.  
“It won’t be long now,” he commented quietly and while Rachel’s gaze fell to her husband, Blaine’s fell to Sebastian. 

 

_September 17th 1939_

Sebastian teased Blaine relentlessly about how much better he looked in the army green than him, peering into the mirror and commenting how well it suited his eyes. Standing by his side, a little shorter as he had always been, Blaine plucked at his with one eyebrow raised. 

“Any shorter and they wouldn’t have let you in, comrade” Sebastian snorted, narrowly dodging a blow to the side of his head.   
“Keep it up and you won’t even make it to Calais,” Blaine informed him pointedly, whistling as he turned on his heel and marched from the house.

Rachel came to the docks to see them both off, Lucy absent from her side.   
“You didn’t bring her,” Blaine murmured, looking over past Rachel’s shoulder as if he might still see his darling baby girl skipping her way towards him, her bows matched to her dress as ever. 

His wife sighed, busying her worrying hands with smoothing off the shoulders of Blaine’s uniform. “I didn’t want her to see all this,” she replied quietly. “I left her with Mrs Jones next door.”

_All this_  wasn’t half as bad as Sebastian had expected it to be. Maybe there was still so much optimism in the air, waves and shouts in the air as friends and family said goodbye to their loved ones, boarding the ships already in hoards. 

Sebastian watched Blaine’s expression carefully. He knew how much Lucy meant to him, Rachel, too. He wondered if Blaine had said any kind of goodbye as he put Lucy to bed the night before. Or if Rachel had said her own goodbyes, the kind exchanged between a married couple, in the privacy of their own bedroom.

He did not allow himself to linger on the latter.

“And someone had to say goodbye to you, too, Sebastian,” Rachel murmured softly, smiling although her eyes were damp with unshed tears. Her red lipstick was a little patchy; at his side, Blaine was wiping a slight smudge from his jawline with the pad of his thumb.

“Times like this, don’t you wish you had a gal, too?”  
Sebastian raised an eyebrow, but did not respond, simply accepting her warm hug. Someone for him to say goodbye to, someone for him to have to leave behind. No, times like this did not make him wish he had a girl. They made him grateful that the person he cared most about in the world would be right alongside him. The war would only last a month or so, they said. They had nothing to fear out there, they said. 

Sebastian had had plenty of girls in the past. None of them interested him much, not their idle chatter or their charming ways. But they had been distractions, enough to keep him going. He had once frequented a club of another type, where men were quick to sit on the edge of his knees and play with the collar of his shirt. 

But it hadn’t been what he wanted. He had no interest in men if they weren’t Blaine, no interest in their hands if they weren’t Blaine’s intricate ones, no interest in lips if they weren’t Blaine’s, curved and full, and still so unknown to him.

“Take care of him,” Rachel whispered into Sebastian’s ear, her hands digging into his back as she hugged him. “You’re the only person I would trust to do that.”  
Sebastian nodded stiffly as she pulled away. Of course he would take care of Blaine. But not for her. 

 

_January 17th 1940_

The war did not last a month, and there was plenty to fear. The enemy was the least of their worries much of the time, what with the damp in the trenches and the bugs and the rats that seemed to nest in ever corner of their small world, bringing with them disease and despair.

Sebastian saw more soldiers get sent home with limbs cut off from trench foot than from actual, combat-caused injuries, and made a particular point about keeping his feet as dry as he possibly could.

Blaine received frequent letters from Rachel, and Lucy, back in England, but of all the things they had shared in their lives together, he did not show Sebastian a single one, nor did he divulge any of the contents. Sebastian did not pry - it was not his place to, not where family was concerned and given the conditions they were in.

The front did not suit Blaine. He was not the kind of man made to be a soldier; neither were many of them in that trench, banded together by a kind of desperate hope that one day an end might come. Sebastian felt himself hardening from every death he witnessed, every drop of dried blood against the earth. But Blaine couldn’t take it so easily. 

It was the nightmares that worried Sebastian the most. He’d first discovered him tossing and turning in his sack late one night when he’d been on watch, his eyebrows crinkling into a frown, quickly grabbing ahold of him. He’d been terrified he could choke himself from all the squirming alone, let alone what was filling his head so as to contort his body so.

From then on, he’d taken to swapping watches accordingly, making sure he would be sleeping when Blaine was, and awake when his companion was. If Blaine noticed the efforts he’d gone to, he didn’t mention it, but he certainly didn’t resist when Sebastian spent the nights from then on curled up beside him, always ready to wake when necessary.

Most mornings, Blaine would wake to cool dawn to find Sebastian sound asleep, with his arms wrapped tightly around his waist, keeping him locked down from being able to injure himself in the confined space. The nightmares lessened with Sebastian there, but the images remained burned behind his retinas. 

“It’s the faces, so many faces,” Blaine murmured one night, as the two men shared between them some rare pieces of chocolate that had found their way through the long line of communications to them. “I see them the moment I close my eyes. All the men I have killed. All the men who won’t return to their families. Because of  _me.”_

He was shaking, the chocolate falling to pieces in his hand. Sebastian caught the crumbs in his palm, pressing the sugary treat to Blaine’s lips until they parted willingly, accepting his thumb into his mouth. The shaking subsided and Sebastian held him until he fell asleep. That night, Blaine slept soundly, for the first time in months. 

 

_May 17th, 1940_

“Shit,” Sebastian swore under his breath, his hands fumbling in the darkness as the clip on his rifle jammed.  _“Shit_.”  
Grenades whistled over his head, his body crouched low in the mud, his feet sinking in so deep he wondered vaguely if he’d ever be able to move from that position again. Those were things he could easily ignore, however.

The yells, the screams of pain, they were harder to ignore. Especially when many came from so close by, comrades, his brothers whom he had shared this time with. Falling around him like toy soldiers and he was  _supposed_  to just ignore it, to keep focusing forward on the enemy lines. 

It was getting harder every day to let everything roll of off his shoulders, as clean as the dust that these lives around him were reduced to. Harder when every week there were new men being brought in, to replace those that had been lost, harder when every week spirits fell evermore. 

He tossed the rifle aside with a grunt. It was useless to him now. He stuffed hand into his pocket, plucking the grenade into his fist. He scanned the expanse ahead of him. It was dark, too dark to think about aim or target. 

_Just pull and throw._

Sebastian tore the clip free with his teeth, spitting it into the dirt before launching it as far as he could over the plain. He watched with grim satisfaction as a small explosion appeared on the horizon. Sebastian told himself that he heard at least one death cry out there. At least one to make up for his fallen comrades.

“Smythe,” someone hissed across the plain, his head whipping around. “ _Sebastian_ , where are you?”  
Sebastian dug around in his pocket for his lighter, flipping it open and sparking it for long enough to give the man some kind of signal. 

He couldn’t tell who it was, probably wouldn’t have been able to even if it had been light, with the mud caked over the man’s face. His hand clamped down over his shoulder, his breathing heavy. “Sebastian, it’s Blaine, he’s-”

Sebastian stumbled over his feet in his haste to start moving back towards the trenches, any thought of his orders or his duties flooding out of his mind. He heard the man calling out after him, warning him, maybe, but it was just white noise, blending in among the sounds of the war that he was running away from. 

His feet kept stumbling in the mud, his uniform too heavy on his limbs, holding him back. He could see men huddled around the entrance to the trenches, hear their voices as they orchestrated something down there, something being passed between them. Someone.

_Blaine._

“Let me through,” Sebastian growled as he neared the crowd, pushing past the ring of soldiers. His feet stilled, his heart rising up into his throat, and for a moment Sebastian was sure he might throw up. 

Blaine wasn’t still, not yet, but rather shuddering on the ground, his head propped up in James’ lap, eyelids heavy. The blood had soaked through the front of his uniform, shining up dark in the dim lights of the trenches. 

“We don’t know what happened, we found him like this,” James explained quietly, not saying a word as Sebastian pushed him away to take his place at Blaine’s head. “Maybe we should have left him there.”

“No,” Sebastian whispered, only registering the shaking in his hands as he pushed the hair back from Blaine’s forehead gently.  _Fuck protocol._  “Thank you for bringing him back,” he said quietly, his tears making tracks through the dirt on his cheeks. 

Someone whispered over his head, the men taking a respectable step back from the two of them. Many removed their helmets, holding them over their chests, heads bowed as they surrounded the pair. 

“Blaine, it’s me,” Sebastian murmured, his hand still stroking Blaine’s forehead furiously, as if any touch might be enough for him to keep his eyes open. “Blaine, I’m here.”  
“Sebastian,” Blaine whispered, his hand flailing against his blood-sodden chest, a choked sound coming from his throat. In his hand, Sebastian could just make out his handkerchief,  _S.S._  shining up from the corner, although it was streaked red with blood.

Sebastian shushed him gently, taking the hand in his own. He didn’t care that it was covered in blood, he held it so fiercely, squeezing down around his fingers. “You just keep those eyes open, you hear me, B? You keep them open. They’ll be coming to fix you up, they’re coming to help you right now.”

It was a lie, it was all lies. No one would come, the medics would take one look at Blaine and considered him a lost cause. There was probably little they could do anyway, particularly when they’d have to get Blaine to the end of the trenches, not the other way around. 

“No one’s coming, Bastian,” Blaine murmured, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “But you’re here.”  
Sebastian nodded, trying to control the sobs that were threatening to sound, bubbling up in his chest. “I’m here.”

Their eyes met and every moment of their lives together came back, a swirl of memories above their heads. Every touch of fingertips, hidden beneath the dinner table or in a church pew, accidental brushes, hugs that lingered just a moment too long. Sebastian didn’t have time to hesitate anymore, he didn’t have time to be scared.

Sebastian leaned his head down, pressing his lips to Blaine’s fiercely, his eyes squeezing shut. He tried to remember every detail: how Blaine breathed against his mouth, how his lips wrapped around Sebastian’s upper one, how much tighter he gripped his hand. Around them, the men closed their eyes, allowing their comrade to say goodbye to his best friend. His love. 

“Don’t forget about me,” Blaine whispered, his eyes closed, his breathing steady and even.  
Sebastian watched as his own tears fell to Blaine’s face, leaving a slight imprint there. He laughed wetly, rubbing his thumb over the dips of Blaine’s knuckles. “Never.” 

“Sebastian?” Blaine said softly, so softly that Sebastian nearly missed it.   
Sebastian kissed his forehead lightly, trying to ignore the rising panic in his chest as Blaine’s grip started to loosen on his hand.  
“I love you, Sebastian. I’ve always loved you.”  
“I love you, too, Blaine,” Sebastian replied with a small smile, but it was five words Blaine would never hear as his heart came to a standstill in his chest. 

“No,” Sebastian whispered, clinging to Blaine’s body as the men stepped forward to try and move him away. “No,  _no._  Blaine, you can’t leave me. He’s just  _resting_ , don’t you dare take him from me,” he snapped at the men around him.

But they overpowered him, fourteen of them to one of him, dragging him back and against the wall of the trenches as Blaine was lifted and carried out of his line of sight. 

 

_July 17th, 1940_

Sebastian wished in his quiet moments the bullet that had seared his leg could have lodged into his chest, instead. That he could be laid to rest alongside Blaine on the continent, not returning to England with a splint and a walking stick and the orders that he should return in six months, following medical examination.

He had no interest in returning to England. He considered going back to America, once the war was over. Somewhere far from the memories that he had of that small town in the south, far from Rachel, and Lucy, with her big eyes that reminded him always so much of Blaine. 

Rachel and Lucy who were the first at his door when he did return, adjusting in fits and starts to life with only one good leg. The cane irritated him, made his arm ache and himself feel useless. He slammed the door open at their persistent knocking, and one glance at Lucy told him he would never be able to look at the little girl again.

Sebastian wondered if he was supposed to apologize, for letting Blaine die, whether he was responsible. He’d promised to take care of him and he hadn’t. He’d broken that promise to himself and now Blaine was another of those who would not return to his family. Nor to him.

But Rachel didn’t seem to be there for an apology, rather to wrap her arms around him as fiercely as she had the day he had left, at the docks. She fretted and fussed over him, making plans to check in daily with food and to help with the house. Sebastian brushed her off; he was injured, not an invalid. Maybe the help would have been useful, but he didn’t want it. He didn’t want to be around anyone.

She sensed his reluctance and politely made her move to leave, Lucy clutching at her hand and wondering why Uncle Bastian wasn’t smiling like he used to. Wondering if soon her daddy would be home, and whether he’d be as sullen, too.

“Sebastian?” Rachel asked, hovering on the doorstep to his house. “Did he say anything? About us? You were there with him, in those last moments, weren’t you?”  
Sebastian was silent for a moment. 

_I love you, Sebastian. I’ve always loved you._

“He said that he loved you, both of you. And that he would always be with you,” Sebastian said, before closing the door, hoping to god that he would never have to lie to Rachel again.

 

_August 17th, 1954_

Sebastian never was sent back to the front. In going to his medical examination, it was found that the wound had become infected and in the spring of 1941, his leg was removed from the knee down. One cane became two, two vile pieces of wood that Sebastian liked to kick with his good leg in his spare time, of which he had plenty.

They kept talking of these prosthetic legs, of how one day Sebastian might even walk unassisted again. Sebastian sneered off their suggestions. He had no faith in medical science or doctors, their grand ideas which had gotten them nowhere in the past.

Against his better judgement, Sebastian remained in England after the war. Maybe it helped that Rachel and Lucy had moved away when the war ended, Blaine’s daughter now a beautiful young woman with all the graces of her father, whom she had barely had time to get to know.

Sebastian often found his nights spent at the theatre nearby. The piano player was nothing like Blaine had been, even if the theatre had never gotten to know of his talents. He looked too serious as he played, too. Not full of laughter and smiles as Blaine had been whenever he got his fingers on the keys of the instrument. 

Whisky became Sebastian’s drink of choice, and would ultimately lead to his death as a quiet old man tucked up in that house. The waitresses at the theatre came to know him, the man who sat quietly in the corner, ordering drink after drink and always overpaying before he left. 

They had a singer in that night, it had been all the buzz in the town for the past fortnight. It was too busy for Sebastian’s liking, but he had no desire to drink alone tonight. At least there, he was in the company of others, regardless of whether or not he said a single word to another. 

He didn’t register that the tears had began dripping down his face until one of the waitresses came to refill his glass, laying a hand on his shoulder and asking if he was alright. Sebastian shrugged her off without a word, but making no move to wipe his cheeks. The glass shook in his hand as he picked it up, the liquid sloshing over his pants. Some might take him for a drunk, but that wasn’t it. 

Sebastian watched couples on the dance floor, gently swaying to the tune, arms wrapped around their lovers. He closed his eyes for a moment, allowing himself to imagine that Blaine was there with him. That they could dance together, Blaine’s face tucked into the crook of his neck. How fiercely he would hold him. How he would find a way to never let go again.

Some of the other customers began to sing along; they knew the tune. Sebastian didn’t sing, but he felt the words on his tongue, felt them in every beat of his heart. 

_We’ll meet again, sweetheart_  
 _This lovely day has flown away_  
 _The time has come to part_  
 _We’ll kiss again, like this again_  
 _Don’t let the teardrops start_  
 _With love that’s true, I’ll wait for you  
_ _Auf wiedersehen, sweetheart_


End file.
